The rivalry delivered again on Saturday night, and this time, it was North Carolina coming back in dramatic fashion to steal an emotional win over Duke in a game that flipped entirely due to late-game execution.
For head coach Hubert Davis, the comeback wasn’t rooted in adjustments as much as it was mentality, mainly when his group finally matched Duke’s physicality, something many were worried about before the game, especially on the glass.
“Yeah, (that) we’d continue to fight,” Davis said, per Cade Shoemaker. “We were down, but I think one of the things that we were missing is we didn’t join the fight. Every 50/50 loose ball they were getting, whether the ball was going up in the air on the ground, they were the first ones to get it. And we just continue to stick to it anytime, every time that we got knocked down, not only did we get back up, we kept taking a step forward. And as we continue to cut into the lead, our confidence just got better on both ends of the floor.”
After being outworked early on both sides of the basketball, UNC began flipping possession battles. All the little things started to go UNC’s way, and while some of that is luck-based, a lot of this was simply due to the Tar Heels doing what was needed on both sides of the ball and putting themselves in good spots. As a result, confidence followed.
Davis spoke about Henri Veesaar, whose first half was burtal but he did what was needed in the second half.
“And then Henri stepped up,” Davis said. “He had zero defensive rebounds in the first half. He had a double-double for the second half. And so his ability to dominate points in the paint for us was huge, and Caleb kept us around in the first half, and then Henri, Derek hit some 3s, Seth, other guys joined the party, and it was a team effort.”
This rivalry always gives us great games, and this was one of the better ones. UNC needs to build off this momentum, though, as it’s good enough to be a very good team and string together some wins right now.